Campaigning for safer, healthier food for all - The Food Commission

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Biscuits use sunblock as ‘natural’ colouring
In a consumer survey published in January, the
government’s Food Standards Agency found that
consumers do not generally trust descriptions
such as ‘real’,
‘original’ and ‘natural’
on food labels. No
wonder when products
such as these Jammie
Dodgers (nearly 30% sugar and over 7%
saturated fat) claim to have ‘No artificial
colours’, but list titanium dioxide as a colouring.
If it isn't artificial then it must be natural, we
assume, but just how natural is it to have a
mouthful of titanium dioxide?
The answer is that you have to be pretty
unlucky. The chemical can be
obtained from a type of beach
sand (rutile sand) and
sometimes occurs in a different
Sweets for dummies?
What’s this? A baby’s dummy
that the manufacturer warns is
unsuitable for babies? What a
strange anomaly.
With an internal plastic spike
inside this Baby Pop lolly, the
warning is presumably due to the
danger of impalement on ‘small parts’. But what
about the danger to small teeth of prolonged
exposure to a sugary sweet while a child is
sucking on this amazing object?
Sadly, UK law seems more concerned with
preventing accidents than preventing disease, so
such products can continue to be sold.
Waitrose: where the lights never say ‘go’?
Our hearty congratulations to the supermarket
chain Waitrose for being the first to adopt the
government’s approved traffic light scheme for
nutrient labelling.
Despite an industry plot to make nutrient
labelling as confusing as possible, with major
companies launching contradictory schemes,
using different nutritional criteria and confusing
colour coding, bars, stars, wheels and blobs,
the Food Standards Agency has stuck to its
guns and called for a consistent and uniform
approach using a simple set of traffic lights
based on the FSA's definitions of low, medium
and high levels of the key nutrients (fat,
saturates, salt and sugars).
Waitrose has launched an FSA-approved
traffic light scheme on its sandwich packs, and
helpfully suggests that this 'can help you
The best available?
A ‘healthy option’
from Waitrose, but
still not giving us
the green light.
crystalline form known as anatase. But even with
a mouthful of rutile sand you would not be getting
pure titanium dioxide. To purify the pigment, you
must refine the ore: this
means using either a
sulphate process, which
uses sulphuric acid as an
extraction agent, or a
chloride process, which uses chlorine. These
processes were first used for bulk production of
titanium dioxide less than a century ago.
With highly reflective properties, titanium
dioxide is widely used in paints, plastics and
paper coatings, and as a sunblock ingredient. It
is also strongly oxidative, and is used for
sterilising building materials and is added to antifouling
coatings. On the label, the manufacturer
of these biscuits ask ‘What makes 'em so
Yummy?’ What indeed?
balance your weekly intake'. It helpfully adds: 'If
you choose a sandwich that is high in
saturated fat one day, you might select one
which is low or medium the next'.
But suppose you wanted to eat a healthy
sandwich every day? We have visited Waitrose
on two occasions to buy a sandwich with all
the traffic lights set at green.
Alas! We could find not a single sandwich
able to supply a fully healthy snack. Most of the
best ones were let down by excess salt.
Perhaps this will shame the company into
reformulating their products. We have long
argued that best thing about nutrient labelling is
not that it passes responsibility for good health
to the consumer but that it exposes the
practices of the producers.
How about an all-green sandwich, Waitrose?
And the worst? Tesco's sandwich
declares a hefty 58g fat – but all fat
levels get the same green light!
Is green the colour
of money?
A glossy supplement in the magazine Green
Futures, from Jonathon Porritt's group Forum
for the Future, is entitled Sausage, Mash and
Sustainability.
It delves into the need to combat obesity,
improve school meals, reduce salt in
processed foods and promote local food
supplies, such as beef from Hampshire farms
into nearby schools.
All very laudable, but there were some odd
extra boxes on some pages, extolling the
virtues of school-meals providers Compass,
Kraft Foods (makers of Dairylea Lunchables),
and the promoters of British beef, the Meat
and Livestock Commission.
No sign that these were paid-for
advertisements, just useful information to boost
the stories on healthier living, it appeared.
Until one got to the back page to find that
the whole supplement had been sponsored by
– yes – Compass, Kraft and the MLC.
And there was a fourth sponsor. You, dear
readers, as tax payers, helped promote these
advertorials with a grant from Defra.
But there is a nice twist to the story. If you
go to the Green Futures website you will be
asked to pay £24 or more to receive the
magazine, including the supplement.
But if you go to Defra's website they have
reproduced the whole thing for free!
See www.defra.gov.uk/FARM/sustain/
procurement/pdf/GFreport05.pdf
for knowledge
The European Commission appeared to be
caught unawares by the benzene-in-soft-drinks
scandal (see pages 18 to 19). According to the
online trade magazine BeverageDaily.com, a
letter dated December 2005 and signed by a
Commission official stated that the Commission
'is not aware of any scientific evidence relating
to the formation of benzene' as a result of using
benzoates in soft drinks. It had asked EU member
states to send any details in their possession.
Perhaps the Commission staff should have
read an interesting report from the Italian Institute
for Health and Consumer Protection.
The report states: ‘Added benzoates and
ascorbates might react to form benzene. If
either one of the other were removed, the
benzene might no longer be formed.’ It goes on
to list the benzene levels found in various drinks
and juices, helpfully stating whether the samples
had added benzoates.
The report also declares in large print on the
front cover that the research was undertaken
for… the European Commission! And the
document was placed on the Commission's own
research website in 2004.
Food Magazine 73 24
Apr/Jun 2006
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